Newly signed Kawasaki Pedercini rider Leandro Mercado will not be taking part in the opening round of the World Superbike championship at Phillip Island, February 24th to 26th after fracturing his right radius bone while training with his supermotard.

The young Argentian rider who won last month’s 500 Milhas Interlagos endurance race has already undergone surgery to fix the fracture in order to speed up the healing process and will start rehabilitation next week, and is expected to return to action for the second round of the season that takes place at the end of March at Imola.

Pedercini has already lined up Bryan Staring as Mercado’s replacement rider. The Australian is in his second year of Superstock FIM 1000 Cup championship with the Italian team and last season Pedercini had him wildcard in WSBKs always at Phillip Island, where he picked up one point.

Leandro “Tati” Mercado: “I’m really disappointed because I won’t be able to participate at the Phillip Island races as it could be my Superbike debut. I was eager to compete in Australia hoping to obtain good results. I know the whole team worked extremely hard to prepare my bike for the first appointment of the season and now I’m forced to miss out on the race. Starting from next week, with the help of my doctors, I’ll start intensive rehabilitation to make sure that I’ll be in top condition for the second race in Imola”.

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Kawasaki’s official World Superbike team with Tom Sykes and Joan Lascorz weren’t the only Kawasaki’s at Valencia for a two day test, but privateer Pedercini Kawasaki team was also present at the Ricardo Tormo circuit.

With Roberto Rolfo moving back to Moto2 next season, the Italian team had their Superstock 1000 rider Tati Mercado testing the ZX-10R Superbike spec machine, which could mean that they could be thinking of moving the Argentinian to the more prestigious Superbike championship next season.

Pedercini also brought their Superstock rider Bryan Staring. The Australian worked on the suspension and chassis settings of his Superstock Kawasaki bike that he used during this year’s Superstock 1000 FIM Cup.

The team has yet to confirm if Mark Aitchison will be back with them in 2012.

“These two day of testing for me were very positive and as a first test, I think it went very well. I really enjoyed riding the bike as this was my first real experience of a superbike. My Kawasaki is powerful and fantastic to ride. Every time I entered into the circuit I improved my riding style to better suit the bike. Of course we have now a lot of areas to improve with the overall bike set up and with my riding style, but I think these two days here in Valencia have taught me a lot. I enjoy working with my team and I look forward to test again next year, before the beginning of the Championship,” said Tati Mercado

While Bryan Staring said, “I am happy because the tests went well. We didn’t have any notable problems and the test gave us a very good feeling and we know how we can improve it even more. We got some things really worked out for this test and we have improved the bike quite a bit, the whole package. I learned some more things about the Ninja ZX-10R over these days, all good things. I am also happy with the way we are working in the team.”

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2009 and 2010 Australian Superbike champion Bryan Staring who’ll be racing with Team Pedercini this year in Superstock FIM Cup 100, will be getting a racing bonus as the Italian team will be fielding him alongside Roberto Rolfo in the season opener at Phillip Island, in the World Superbike race.

This will give Aussie racing fans a chance to see Staring and wildcard entry Josh Waters on the Yoshimura Suzuki compete against each other again, and this could also mean that Gabor Talmacsi who tried out the ZX-10R at the Kawasaki test at Sepang, will not be racing anytime soon for Pedercini.

Source | bikeracing.it

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